XO Jet Hawkers

[gret]

Facts are tough to face...when you want to live in the past.

 

[X-rated]

You guys are all so funny. You'll come on here and berate your individual companies for all sorts of short comings, but mention any other operator and all of a sudden you work for the best company that ever existed. Your pilots are the hardest working, best qualified and safest men and women to walk the earth since Skyking. It's like sports fans supporting their home-team club.

Here is a hint. You all do exactly the same job and pull from the same pool of pilots. Some hires are great, some are average, and some are below average. Every operator has it's strengths and weaknesses. None of these companies is perfect, so let the marketing departments spin the stories. Just fly your planes, do your best for your customers, and help out your fellow pilots regardless of who's uniform they wear.

Ok, I'm ready. Let me have it...

 

[rajflyboy]

You guys are all so funny. You'll come on here and berate your individual companies for all sorts of short comings, but mention any other operator and all of a sudden you work for the best company that ever existed. Your pilots are the hardest working, best qualified and safest men and women to walk the earth since Skyking. It's like sports fans supporting their home-team club.

Here is a hint. You all do exactly the same job and pull from the same pool of pilots. Some hires are great, some are average, and some are below average. Every operator has it's strengths and weaknesses. None of these companies is perfect, so let the marketing departments spin the stories. Just fly your planes, do your best for your customers, and help out your fellow pilots regardless of who's uniform they wear.

Ok, I'm ready. Let me have it...

Very true

 

[brokeflyer]

You guys are all so funny. You'll come on here and berate your individual companies for all sorts of short comings, but mention any other operator and all of a sudden you work for the best company that ever existed. Your pilots are the hardest working, best qualified and safest men and women to walk the earth since Skyking. It's like sports fans supporting their home-team club.

Here is a hint. You all do exactly the same job and pull from the same pool of pilots. Some hires are great, some are average, and some are below average. Every operator has it's strengths and weaknesses. None of these companies is perfect, so let the marketing departments spin the stories. Just fly your planes, do your best for your customers, and help out your fellow pilots regardless of who's uniform they wear.

Ok, I'm ready. Let me have it...

nah, I think that was well said.

 

[Helmsalee]

A couple of decades ago, that was the way it was in all levels of aviation. Don't think we will ever see that again.
Helm

 

[realityman]

You guys are all so funny. You'll come on here and berate your individual companies for all sorts of short comings, but mention any other operator and all of a sudden you work for the best company that ever existed. Your pilots are the hardest working, best qualified and safest men and women to walk the earth since Skyking. It's like sports fans supporting their home-team club.

Here is a hint. You all do exactly the same job and pull from the same pool of pilots. Some hires are great, some are average, and some are below average. Every operator has it's strengths and weaknesses. None of these companies is perfect, so let the marketing departments spin the stories. Just fly your planes, do your best for your customers, and help out your fellow pilots regardless of who's uniform they wear.

Ok, I'm ready. Let me have it...

I love it!!! Best post on here in, well, YEARS!!

Yes, pilots eat their own. Even when some of those being eaten are trying to accomplish something that everyone could benefit from.

Reminds me of when I started with NJA (it was EJA back then). I came here in early '97, when an F/O started at $27K and a first year captain was paid $36K and we had to pay for our own training. Back in those days EJA was just starting on its rapid expansion. We were hiring like crazy and we couldn't take delivery of planes fast enough to keep up with demand. Some flight departments were closing their doors and going with shares with NJA.

And our pilots were hated. I'd even use the word 'reviled' by some. Why? Because we were called the "hors" of the industry. We were willing to pay for training and work at ridiculously low wages, which undercut everyone else and was helping to put pilots out of work as their flight departments closed and those companies went with us. I always wondered about this undercutting argument since even back then we were far more expensive than charter. But I digress.

So we were hated for "horing" ourselves out for such low wages.

Then came the fight for our new contract back in '04 and '05. We had enough and wanted to be paid 'professional' wages for doing what we did. That's when I really learned about pilots eating their own. As we battled with management for a decent wage, I was excited to hear from all those out there who called us "hors". After all, we weren't going to be "hors of the industry" anymore. The wave of support was going to be overwhelming, right?

Wrong. The very same folks who berated us for working for such low wages were now throwing insults at us and calling us "greedy". We were going to wreck a perfectly good company with our unreasonable demands. Oh, there were some out there who actually saw what we were trying to accomplish and took the time to wish us well, but the majority took every chance to cut down our efforts. I read it in the aviation periodicals. Heard it from the other pilots I met on the road. And read a fair amount of it on these very boards. We were now the perfect example of why aviation companies can't survive: those darn greedy pilots!!

So if we worked for low wages, we were what was wrong with the industry. And if we worked for professional wages, we were what was wrong with the industry.

Funny thing was, so many people benefited from our efforts. Shortly after our contract was signed, wages went up across the board for pretty much all the fractional pilots. Heck, even our (then) seperate company brethren at NJI received a tangible benefit from our efforts. I personally knew of a number of charter operators who 'coincidentally' increased their compensation packages shortly after our contract was ratified. And yet, very few of those who benefited from our efforts even cast a glance in our direction. We were still either "hors" or "greedy".

Before anyone jumps on me and tells me I'm being an arrogant a** for claiming we saved everyone flying private jets, that is not my point at all, or what I'm saying. I'm saying a lot of folks did benefit from our efforts. Certainly not everyone, nor am I saying we 'saved' anything. In fact, I openly admit we didn't do it for anyone outside of NJA. We acted as our union should, in our own self interests.

My point is just that X-Rated is correct. We should be helping each other out, and providing support. Not necessarily for our competing companies, but for the pilots who fly for those companies. We all do the same thing. Really. Rather than calling those who will work for less "hors", maybe we should provide encouragement to them to work to better their working compensation. And when a group manages to actually better things for themselves, maybe we should congratulate them for raising the bar, rather than refer to them as "greedy".

Personally, I'd be thrilled to see Flight Options, or Flex, or XOJet come up with a contract that paid 50% more than ours!

Think about it.

 

[Helmsalee]

Amen!!!

 

[gunfyter]

Ditto to reality man and x-rated

 

[cldsfr79]

And be careful of what you say, becuase just a few months before XOJet repainted and refurbished them, NJ was flying them beat up, unrefurbished, in what ever condition they were in, but charged premium prices for it, and told and billed owners for refubishing the jets every 3-4 years but sytretched that to 8 years.

Yes, we had older planes and they did start to show their age, that's why even during the recession, we spent millions a year refurbishing interiors.

I love this quote because NJ did get rid of our worst planes that we didn't refurbish. They weren't acceptable to NJ and it's owners so we dumped them. Xo and other operators were more than happy to pick them up. Now they are your problem childs. Fancy interior on an old tired airframe.

And incase anyone didn't here the news, NJ is in the processes of updating its entire fleet. News flash: We have 10+ BILLION dollars worth of planes on order. Delivers have already started. So we will continue to sell our old outdated planes to our charter "competitors" while we revamp the fleet.

XO jet is kind of like how Jet Blue advertised the youngest airline fleet; of course you are, you just started! Of course XO's planes are all less then 7 years old, you have only been around that long! Of course your planes look good, you just got them. Let's see what happens in just 3 years from now.

Come talk to me when you have been around 25 plus years, have revamped your fleet multiple times, place multiple orders for billions of dollars of airframes over decades times. Come talk to me when your company comes up with an original idea instead of coping what NJ has done and tell everyone it's new and exciting.

(In the end, myself and others do bash on each other but I do hope for the best for everyone's job and company. It's like rooting for your sports team and railing on the other guy's team. )

 

[brokeflyer]

Netjets has much better pilots too.